by Terry Brooks
“A tunesmith, are you?” Dees grunted. “From Rampling Steep?”
“Well, by way of Rampling Steep. I was there a day or so once several years back.” Carisman looked sheepish. “The rhyme works, so I use it.” He brightened. “But a tunesmith, yes. All my life. I have the gift of song and the wit to make use of it. I have talent.”
“But why are you here, Carisman?” Quickening pressed.
Carisman seemed to melt. “Lady, chance has brought me to this place and time and even to you. I have traveled the better part of the Four Lands, searching out the songs that would give wings to my music. There is a restlessness in me that will not let me stay in any one place for very long. I have had my chances to do so, and even ladies who wished to keep me—though none was as beautiful as you. But I keep moving. I wandered first west, then east, and finally north. I passed through Rampling Steep and found myself wondering what lay beyond. Finally I set out across the mountains to see.”
“And survived?” Horner Dees asked incredulously.
“Just barely. I have a sense of things; it comes from my music, I think. I was well provisioned, for I had traveled in rough country before. I found my way by listening to my heart. I had the good fortune of encountering favorable weather. When I was finally across—exhausted and close to starving, I admit—I was found by the Urdas. Not knowing what else to do, I sang for them. They were enchanted by my music and they made me their king.”
“Enchanted by limericks and snippets of rhyme?” Dees refused to let go of his skepticism. “A bold claim, Carisman.”
Carisman grinned boyishly. “Oh, I don’t claim to be a better man than any other.”
He sang:
“No matter how high or lofty the throne,
What sits on it is the same as your own.”
He brushed the matter aside. “Eat now, you must be very hungry after your journey. There is as much food and drink as you want. And tell me what brings you here. No one from the Southland ever comes this far north—not even the trappers. I never see anyone except Trolls and Gnomes. What brings you?”
Quickening told him that they were on a quest, that they had come in search of a talisman. It was more than Morgan would have revealed, but it seemed to matter little to Carisman, who did not even bother asking what the talisman was or why they needed it but only wanted to know if Quickening could teach him any new songs. Carisman was quick and bright, yet his focus was quixotic and narrow. He was like a child, inquisitive and distracted and full of the wonder of things. He seemed to genuinely need approval. Quickening was the most responsive, so he concentrated his attention on her and included the others in his conversation mostly by implication. Morgan listened disinterestedly as he ate, then noticed that Walker wasn’t listening at all, that he was studying the Urdas below the platform. Morgan began studying them as well. After a time he saw that they were seated in carefully defined groups, and that the foremost group consisted of a mixed gathering of old and young men to whom all the others deferred. Chiefs, thought Morgan at once. They were talking intently among themselves, glancing now and then at the six seated on the platform, but otherwise ignoring them. Something was being decided, without Carisman.
Morgan grew nervous.
The meal ended and the empty plates were carried away. There was a sustained clapping from the Urdas, and Carisman rose to his feet with a sigh. He sang once more, but this time the song was different. This time it was studied and intricate, a finely wrought piece of music filled with nuances and subtleties that transcended the tune. Carisman’s voice filled the lodge, it soared and swept aside everything that separated it from the senses, reaching down through the body to embrace and cradle the heart. Morgan was astounded. He had never been so affected—not even by the music of the wishsong. Par Ohmsford could capture your feeling for and sense of history in his song, but Carisman could capture your soul.
When the tunesmith was finished, there was utter silence. Slowly he sat down again, momentarily lost in himself, still caught up in what he had sung. Then the Urdas began thumping their hands on their knees approvingly.
Quickening said, “That was beautiful, Carisman.”
“Thank you, Lady,” he replied, sheepish again. “I have a talent for more than limericks, you see.”
The silver-haired girl looked suddenly at Walker. “Did you find it beautiful, Walker Boh?”
The pale face inclined in thought. “It makes me wonder why someone who possesses such abilities chooses to share them with so few.” The dark eyes fixed Carisman.
The tunesmith squirmed uncomfortably. “Well.” The words suddenly would not seem to come.
“Especially since you said yourself that there is a restlessness in you that will not allow you to stay in one place. Yet you stay here among the Urdas.”
Carisman looked down at his hands.
“They will not let you leave, will they?” Walker said quietly.
Carisman looked as if he would sink into the earth. “No,” he admitted reluctantly. “For all that lam, a king notwithstanding, I remain a captive. I am allowed to be king only so long as I sing my songs. The Urdas keep me because they believe my song is magic.”
“And so it is,” Quickening murmured so softly that only Morgan, seated next to her, heard.
“What about us?” Dees demanded sharply. He shifted his bulk menacingly. “Are we captives as well? Have you brought us here as guests or prisoners, King Carisman? Or do you even have a say in the matter?”
“Oh, no!” the tunesmith exclaimed, clearly distraught. “I mean, yes, I have a say in the matter. And, no, you are not prisoners. I need only speak with the council, those men gathered there below us.” He pointed to the group that Walker and Morgan had been observing earlier. Then he hesitated as he caught the black look on Pe Ell’s face and came hurriedly to his feet. “I shall speak to them at once. If need be, I shall sing. A special song. You shall not remain here any longer than you wish, I promise. Lady, believe me, please. Friends.”
He rushed from the platform and knelt next to the members of the Urda council, addressing them earnestly. The five who waited to discover whether they were guests or prisoners looked at one another.
“I don’t think he can do anything to help us,” Horner Dees muttered.
Pe Ell edged forward. “If 1 put a knife to his throat they will release us quick enough.”
“Or kill us on the spot,” Dees replied with a hiss. The two glared at each other.
“Let him have his chance,” Walker Boh said, looking calmly at the assemblage. His face was unreadable.
“Yes,” Quickening agreed softly. “Patience.”
They sat silently after that until Carisman returned, detaching himself from the council, stepping back onto the platform to face them. His face told them everything. “I…I have to ask you to stay the night,” he said, struggling to get the words out, discomforted beyond measure. “The council wishes to…debate the matter a bit. Just a formality, you understand. I simply require a little time…”
He trailed off uncertainly. He had positioned himself as far as possible from Pe Ell. Morgan held his breath. He didn’t think the distance separating the two offered the tunesmith much protection. He found himself wondering, almost in fascination, what Pe Ell would do, what he could in fact do against so many.
He would not find out on this occasion. Quickening smiled reassuringly at Carisman and said, “We will wait.”
They were taken to one of the larger huts and given mats and blankets for sleeping. The door was closed behind them, but not locked. Morgan didn’t think it mattered either way. The hut sat in the center of the village, and the village was enclosed by the stockade and filled with Urdas. He had taken the trouble of asking Dees about the strange creatures during dinner. Dees had told him that they were a tribe of hunters. The weapons they carried were designed to bring down even the swiftest game. Two-legged intruders, he said, would not prove much of a challenge.
Pe Ell stood looking
out through chinks in the hut’s mud walls. “They are not going to let us leave,” he said. No one spoke. “It doesn’t matter what that play-king says, they’ll try to keep us. We had better get away tonight.”
Dees sat back heavily against one wall. “You make it sound as if leaving were an option.”
Pe Ell turned. “I can leave whenever I choose. No prison can hold me.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that the others, save Quickening, just stared at him. Quickening was looking off into space. “There is magic in his song,” she said.
Morgan remembered her saying something like that before. “Real magic?” he asked.
“Close enough to be called so. I do not understand its source; I am not even certain what it can do. But a form of magic nevertheless. He is more than an ordinary tunesmith.”
“Yes,” Pe Ell agreed. “He is a fool.”
“We might think you one as well if you persist in suggesting we can get out of here without him,” Horner Dees snapped.
Pe Ell wheeled on him. There was such rage in his face that Dees came to his feet much more quickly than Morgan would have thought possible. Walker Boh, a dark figure at the hut’s far end, turned slowly. Pe Ell seemed to consider his options, then stalked to where Quickening stood looking at him from beside Morgan. It was all the Highlander could do to stand his ground. Pe Ell’s black look dismissed him with barely a flicker of a glance and fell instead on the girl.
“What do we need any of them for?” he whispered, his voice a hiss of fury. “I came because you asked me to; I could easily have chosen otherwise.”
“I know that,” she said.
“You know what I am.” He bent close, his gaunt face hawk-like above her, his lean body taut. “You know I have the magic you need. I have all the magic you need. Be done with them. Let us go on alone.”
Around him, the room seemed to have turned to stone, the others frozen into statues that could only observe and never act. Morgan Leah’s hand moved a fraction of an inch toward his sword, then stopped. He would never be quick enough, he knew. Pe Ell would kill him before he could pull the blade clear.
Quickening seemed completely unafraid. “It is not yet time for you and I, Pe Ell,” she whispered back, her voice soothing, cool. Her eyes searched his. “You must wait until it is.”
Morgan did not understand what she was saying and he was reasonably certain that Pe Ell didn’t either. The narrow face pinched and the hard eyes flickered. He seemed to be deciding something.
“My father alone has the gift of foresight,” Quickening said softly. “He has foreseen that I shall have need of all of you when we find Uhl Belk. So it shall be-even though you might wish it otherwise, Pe Ell. Even though.”
Pe Ell shook his head slowly. “No, girl. You are wrong. It shall be as I choose. Just as it always is.” He studied her momentarily, then shrugged. “Nevertheless, what difference does it make? Another day, another week, it shall all come out the same in the end. Keep these others with you if you wish. At least for now.”
He turned and moved away by himself, settling into a darkened corner.
The others stared after him in silence.
Night descended and the village of the Urdas grew quiet as its inhabitants drifted off to sleep. The five from Rampling Steep huddled within the darkened confines of their shelter, separated from each other by the privacy of their thoughts. Horner Dees slept. Walker Boh was a shapeless bundle in the shadows, unmoving. Morgan Leah sat next to Quickening, neither speaking, eyes closed against the faint light of moon and stars that penetrated from without.
Pe Ell watched them all and raged silently against circumstance and his own stupidity.
What was wrong with him? he wondered bleakly. Losing his temper like that, exposing himself, nearly ruining his chance of accomplishing what he had set out to do. He was always in control. Always! But not this time, not when he was giving way to frustration and impatience, threatening the girl and all of her precious charges as if he were some schoolboy bully.
He was calm now, able to analyze what he had done, to sift through his emotions and sort out his mistakes. There were many of both. And it was the girl who was responsible, who undid him each time, he knew. She was the bane of his existence, an irritation and an attraction pulling him in opposite directions, a creature of beauty and life and magic that he would never understand until the moment he killed her. His yearning to do so grew stronger all the time, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to restrain. Yet he knew he must if he expected to gain possession of the Black Elfstone. The difficulty was in knowing how to withstand his obsession for her in the meantime. She incensed him, enflamed him, and left him twisted inside like fine wire. Everything that seemed obvious and uncomplicated to him appeared to be just the opposite to her. She insisted on having these fools accompany them—the one-armed man, the Highlander, and the old Tracker. Shades! Useless foils! How much longer would he have to tolerate them?
He felt the anger begin again and moved quickly to quell it. Patience. Her word, not his—but he had better try it on for size.
He listened to the sounds of the Urdas without, the guards, more than a dozen of them, crouched down in the darkness about the hut. He couldn’t see them, but he could feel their presence. His instincts told him they were there. There was no sign of the tunesmith yet—not that it made any difference. The Urdas weren’t about to set them free.
So many intrusions on what really matters!
His sharp eyes fixed momentarily on Dees. That old man. He was the worst of the lot, the hardest to figure out. There was something about him…
He caught himself again. Be patient. Wait. Events would undoubtedly continue to conspire to force him to do otherwise, but he must overcome them. He must remain in control.
Except that it was so difficult here. This was not his country, these were not his people, and the familiarity of surroundings and behavior, of people and customs that he had always been able to rely upon before was missing here. He was scaling a cliff he had never seen before and the footing was treacherous.
Perhaps staying in control this time would prove impossible. He shook his head uneasily. The thought stayed with him and would not be dispelled.
It was after midnight when Carisman reappeared. Quickening brought Morgan awake with a touch of her hand to his cheek. He came to his feet and found the others already standing. The door unlatched and opened, and the tunesmith slipped inside.
“Ah, you are awake. Good.” He moved at once to stand next to Quickening, hesitant to speak, uncertain in their presence, like a boy forced to confess something he would prefer to keep secret.
“What has the council decided, Carisman?” Quickening prodded him gently, taking his arm and bringing him about to face her.
The tunesmith shook his head. “Lady, the best and the worst, I am afraid.” He glanced at the others. “All of you are free to go when you choose.” He turned back to Quickening. “Except you.”
Morgan remembered at once the way the Urdas had looked at Quickening, recalling their fascination with her. “Why?” he demanded heatedly. “Why isn’t she released as well?”
Carisman swallowed. “My subjects find her beautiful. They think she may be magic, like myself. They…wish her to marry me.”
“Well now, this is an inventive tale!” Horner Dees snapped, his bristled face screwing up in disbelief.
Morgan seized Carisman by the tunic front. “I have seen the way you look at her, tunesmith! This is your idea!”
“No, no, I swear it is not!” the other cried in dismay, his handsome face contorted in horror. “I would never do such a thing! The Urdas…”
“The Urdas couldn’t care less about…”
“Let him go, Morgan,” Quickening said, interrupting, her voice low and steady. Morgan released his grip and stepped back instantly. “He speaks the truth,” she said. “This is not his doing.”
Pe Ell had shoved forward like a knife blade. “It doesn’t matte
r whose doing it is.” His eyes fixed Carisman. “She goes with us.”
Carisman’s face went pale, and his eyes shifted anxiously from one determined face to the next. “They won’t let her,” he whispered, his gaze dropping. “And if they don’t, she will end up like me.”
He sang:
“Long ago, in times gone by, there was a fair, fair maiden.
She wandered fields and forest glens,
With all the world her haven.
A mighty Lord a fancy took, demanded that she wed him.
When she refused, he took her home,
And locked her in his dungeon.
She pined away for what she’d lost, a life beyond her prison.
She promised everything she owned,
If she could have her freedom.
A fairy imp her plea did hear and quickly broke the door in.
Yet freed her not as she had asked,
But claimed her his possession.
The moral is: If you offer to give up everything,
Be prepared to keep nothing.”
Horner Dees threw up his hands in exasperation. “What is it you are trying to say, Carisman?” he snapped.
“That your choices often undo you. That seeking everything sometimes costs you everything.” It was Walker Boh who answered. “Carisman thought that in becoming a king he would find freedom and has instead found only shackles.”
“Yes,” the tunesmith breathed, sadness flooding his finely chiseled features. “I don’t belong here any more than Quickening. If you would take her when you go, then you must take me as well!”
“No!” Pe Ell cried instantly.
“Lady,” the tunesmith begged. “Please. I have been here for almost five years now—not just several as I claimed. I am caged as surely as that maiden in my song. If you do not take me with you, I shall be kept captive until I die!”
Quickening shook her head. “It is dangerous where we go, Carisman. Far more dangerous than it is here. You would not be safe.”
Carisman’s voice shook. “It doesn’t matter! I want to be free!”
